Pressure
by the one who hums
Summary: No one said that being the son of the Avatar and the last airbender would be easy. (drabbles centered around Tenzin and his siblings as they grow up)
1. Marbles

**A/N:** This will be the first of (hopefully) many drabbles related to the trials and tribulations that Aang and Katara's children have to deal with throughout their lifetimes, along with some fun times too. Though I'm planning on having this collection centered around Tenzin, since I know his characterization the best, I plan on throwing some Kya and Bumi stories in too. I'll update the summary once I have a better handle on what direction I'm heading in.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra both belong Bryan and Mike. I am merely a college sophomore with a shitty laptop.

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_Marbles_

The glass marbles felt smooth and cool in Tenzin's tiny palms. He rolled them around in his hands and few times, wondering how it might feel to do the marble trick that Daddy had showed him a couple days ago. He held the two colored marbles between his palms, brows knitted together and tongue sticking slightly out of his mouth in concentration as he waited for them to spin.

Nothing.

Well, he supposed bending was overrated anyways. Marbles were fun enough on their own. He put the red one down on the floor and rolled it around himself a couple times, loving the sound it made against the wood floor. He stopped the tiny scarlet orb in front of himself and scuttled backward on the floor a couple feet, leveling his face with the ground. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the still marble lying on the floor. With the dark blue marble still in his hand, Tenzin flicked his thumb out of his fist, shooting the blue marble forward and laughing as it collided into the red. Normally he could never hit his target on the first try.

He crawled along the floor in pursuit of his runaway marbles when he heard his father enter the house. He scrambled on his hands and knees and slammed his hand down on the hardwood, fingers grasping around one of the smooth glass spheres in triumph.

As Aang's footsteps grew louder, Tenzin hurried across the floor, down the hall, chasing after the still-rolling red marble. When it rolled into Aang's study underneath a closet door, Tenzin got an idea. The little boy sneakily decided to surprise his Daddy by jumping out of the closet; his dad always loved playing tricks. As quietly as a five-year-old could run, Tenzin sprinted down the hall and into his father's study, knowing that's the first place Daddy went to when he came home from his day in the city. He scrambled inside the tiny broom closet and shut the door behind him gently, leaving it cracked open just enough for him to peek out and see his father.

Aang entered the room the room with a huff, his grey eyes cold and his jaw set. Tenzin's plan to spring out and surprise Aang faded as he peered at his father with concern. What was wrong?

An Order of the White Lotus guard walked in behind Tenzin's dad, and Tenzin nodded to himself in understanding. That mean old man had been pestering his Daddy for a while, and Aang was always getting frustrated with them. Tenzin prepared to launch himself out of the closet and cheer up Daddy when the guard spoke.

"So have you tried practicing with Tenzin yet?"

The mention of his name made Tenzin stop short and listen.

Aang's jaw clenched and unclenched. "I told you, it's different for everyone. If he's going to be a bender, he'll start when he's ready."

"This is your third kid, Avatar Aang," the Lotus Guard's statement sounded like an accusation. "You know as well as I do that there will be a problem if this child can't bend air." Tenzin frowned. He had been trying his best, and practicing every day on his own, but it didn't seem like he could bend _any_ element yet. Or maybe ever.

"Oh, really?" The malice in his father's usually-kind voice made Tenzin flinch. "How so?"

"You and your wife aren't getting any younger, sir. If you're planning on repopulating the airbender race, you need to start producing children that can actually _bend air_."

Tenzin slid to the floor and sighed. He didn't want to listen to this conversation anymore. He wished he could leave, but he was afraid he'd get in trouble for eavesdropping. He glanced out of the closet once more, but he could only see his father's hands balled into fists. His arms were held rigidly at his sides, and the blue arrows on the backs of his hands were in stark contrast with his white knuckles.

"I don't recall it ever being my job to _produce_ airbenders," Aang said in a voice that sounded so calm that Tenzin was almost more afraid of it than he would be if his father were yelling. "I have duties as the Avatar. I have duties as a husband and a father. But I don't ever remember it being my duty to breed an entire race."

"Avatar Aang, be reasonable."

Tenzin shut the closet door with a quiet click, deciding to leave the rest of the conversation alone. He didn't understand much of what they were saying now anyway. Duties and producing weren't things Tenzin cared about. What he _did_ care about was his red marble, which he found next to his knee on the floor of the closet. Tenzin placed the red sphere in his palm beside its blue counterpart. He rolled the marbles in his hand, watching the light from under the door glint on the spheres' shiny surfaces.

The muffled voices of his father and the White Lotus guard could still be heard. "It's your responsibility, as the last living airbender, to repopulate your people. We thought that an entire culture was lost for over a century before you returned. You are the only one capable of recovering the airbenders."

"They were my people, Keiji. No one understands the loss of the airbenders better than I do," Aang said quietly. "And I do miss them. But it is not my responsibility, nor my duty, to keep having children until an airbender is born. I have a responsibility to Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin to love them unconditionally as their father, whether they can bend anything or not. I have a responsibility to be the best Avatar I am capable of being, to keep this world safe for them." His voice hardened. "To continue to father more children simply because the ones I already have aren't airbenders is cruel and unfair to them. I want an airbender child to pass on my culture to, but I don't want to do it this way. Not if it means making my children unappreciated."

Tenzin pressed the marbles between his palms again and let them roll in circles between his clamped hands, imagining there was tiny storm churning between his fingers causing the marbles to swirl, instead of the circular movement of his palms.

Keiji huffed behind the closet door. "You may think that way now, Avatar. But when your wife is too old to bear children you will regret the fact that you hadn't taken the opportunity to produce an airbender, and were stuck with two nonbenders and a waterbender to carry on your heritage—"

A loud rustle of fabric and a choked "Uck!" cut off the White Lotus guard mid-rant, distracting Tenzin from his marbles momentarily. He could hear his father's strained voice coming through the crack under the door. "Don't you ever, _ever_, insult my children for who they are. I have let you say your piece on this situation, and now I'm asking you to leave." Another rustle of fabric and a loud gasp coming from the Keiji. Then the sound of retreating footsteps.

The marbles grew warmer as Tenzin turned his hands round and round, sitting in the darkness of the broom closet.

He heard Aang on the other side of the door fall heavily into the upholstered chair in his study. He could imagine his Daddy rubbing his face with his large hands as he heard the man sigh loudly. "It's not a problem if I'm the last airbender," he said softly to himself, like a resolution. "That's fine. It's nobody's problem if there are no more after me. I am a father. I am a husband. I am the Avatar." A shuddering breath. "And I am the last airbender. That's not a problem. Not a problem at all." A brief silence punctuated the Avatar's words. Afterwards, a loud sniff came from Aang, and then Tenzin heard his father leave the room as well.

Alone in the room, Tenzin smiled to himself as the marbles swirled and swirled between his hands. He missed the warmth of the glass against his skin, but didn't mind the alternative of the cool air that swirled between his palms. He grinned at the marbles suspended between his splayed fingers, spinning faster and faster on an invisible twister. Daddy would be proud of Tenzin's new trick.

It looked like Daddy's "problem" would soon be his problem too.

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**A/N:** Looks like even a pacifist like Aang can get pretty riled up when it comes to his family, huh?

Leave a comment to tell me how you like it so far, or even if you have any ideas for future drabbles/one-shot about the cloudbabies!


	2. Battle

**A/N:** I'd like to point out now that it's possible that this story might get a little OOC, considering it is now considered canon that Aang did not spend his free-time with Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin equally. While I will incorporate Aang's focus on Tenzin in this story, I plan on including a lot of interaction with Kya and Bumi as welll. I understand that Aang wasn't the perfect father, but it seemed very out-of-character for him to spend all of his time with only one of his children, leaving the others behind. So I'm electing to downplay that part.

Disclaimer: I don't own Legend of Korra or its characters. If I did, then Aang would have paid attention to all of his children and not left three-fourths of his family behind when he went on vacation.

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_Battle_

"Ready. Aim… FIRE!"

The war cry echoed around all of Air Temple Island, and Katara thanked her lucky stars that she had fast reflexes. She dropped to her knees just as the snowballs began flying across the courtyard, a small one still managing to hit her in the shoulder. She turned to the young boy on the ground next to her, hands covering his head and eyes screwed shut, and laughed. "Are you sure you don't want to join in, Tenzin?"

Her son opened one eye to peer at their chaotic surroundings. Bumi and Kya had waged war on a very unsuspecting Avatar who had just come home from a long day in the city. The second a snowball had hit Aang's face, the gauntlet had been thrown. Aang had bended a wall of snow up to his waist, and was currently crouched behind it, making as much ammo as he could before his children's onslaught of snowballs could continue.

Tenzin shrugged indifferently as he brushed the snow from his dark brown curls. Katara knew that Tenzin was the most serious out of all three of her children, despite being the youngest; but that didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun every once in a while too. Katara broke into a smile and grabbed the little boy by the hand. "Come on!"

She remained in a crouched position until the two warring sides were at a ceasefire, both pausing to replenish their snowballs. Katara pulled Tenzin along by the hand until she reached her children's side of the battle field. "Can we join in?" she whispered.

Kya and Bumi looked up and jumped. "Mom?"

Their unison questions made Katara laugh. "And Tenzin too." She pulled the little boy from behind her. "We'd like to help you fight your dad."

Her eldest children looked warily at each other, wondering if their mom would be of much help, and wondering if she was in secret allegiance with Aang. But when Kya nodded, Bumi relaxed. Her eldest son turned to look at her.

"Okay, here's the plan." He took one hand out of his thick brown mitten and used his pointer finger to draw in the snow. "Here's our fort, and here's Dad's," he said, drawing two rectangles in the white powder, facing each other. "Ours is getting weak, so we're gonna need someone to help build it back up." He looked to Tenzin and Katara. "That'll be your job." He drew a couple small circles by their rectangle. "Kya and I are gonna make the snowballs. Well, mostly Kya, since she can bend them a lot faster than I can pack them." His cold little finger drew a final line in the snow, trailing from their fort over to the picture of Aang's. "Then we're gonna plow dad's fort down with snowballs so that we have a better shot of hitting him. Once his fort has fallen, our main target will be Dad." Bumi smiled wickedly. "_Aim for the arrow_." He drew a large X over Aang's fort, planning their father's imminent defeat, and then stuffed his hand into his mitten. "Any questions?"

Katara sat in stunned silence, wondering when her ten-year-old became such a little commander. She supposed he could have learned it from his uncle.

Kya and Bumi put their hands on top of one another's and looked expectantly to their younger brother. Tenzin added his hands to the pile with a small smile and peered up their mom, who giggled and put her hands on top. "And, break!"

Kya and Bumi immediately set to forming more snowballs, piling them up in between them as quickly as possible. Katara turned to Tenzin and began showing her son how to add more snow onto her children's fort so they would be safer from their father's attack. As she held her son by his armpits so he could pack the top of the fort, a surprised cry echoed through the courtyard.

"Katara?!"

The woman looked up at her husband, wide-eyed and surprised. "What?"

"What are you doing taking _their_ side! How could you not fight with your own husband?"

The honest look of betrayal on his face made Katara laugh, much to her husband's dismay. "You're the Avatar, sweetie, you already have the advantage. The kids needed help!" She could hear Kya and Bumi scoff behind her. "Plus," she said with a smirk, "your ego needs to be knocked down a few pegs. Don't think that just because you defeated the Firelord, you can beat us too."

Aang's laugh rang throughout the courtyard. "HA! We'll see about that!"

And with that, the ceasefire ended. Quicker than a rabiroo, Aang had lobbed a snowball across the courtyard, and Katara pulled her younger son from the top of the fort seconds before he was hit. Kya and Bumi attacked their father with renewed forced, sending round after round of snowballs at their father's fort and weakening it, just like Bumi had planned. Their fort was getting pretty battered as well, but with Katara and Tenzin's combined teamwork, it stayed intact much better than the Avatar's. As Aang scrambled to bend more snow onto his fort for protection, wave upon wave of snowballs battered the unprotected Avatar. Kya squealed in delight as one of her snowballs hit Aang's bald head, exploding in a cloud of white powder.

Aang wiped the snow from his face and fake-grimaced. Then suddenly his eyes widened, and Aang smiled devilishly at his family from across the courtyard. He spoke, and it took a moment of straining for Katara to hear what her husband was maniacally laughing about from her spot behind the fort.

"Time to call in the reinforcements."

Katara and her children looked skeptically at one another, and before they could question what their father meant by the statement, Aang's hands were moving in a flurry of fluid movements that could only mean one thing. Waterbending. Three snowmen rose from the snowdrifts between the two forts, and as Aang as their puppet master, began to rush towards Kya, Bumi, Tenzin, and Katara.

Without missing a beat, commander Bumi vaulted over their snow fort. "Attaaaack!"

Kya followed suit, climbing up and over their wall a snow with cry of "Get 'em, Bumi!"

Katara watched as the siblings teamed up to attack their snow-formed assailants. Kya bended a small stream of water up from the ground, and with a little concentration, the water hardened into a rounded icicle the size of her arm. "Bumi!" she cried out, and the older boy, who had been mercilessly beating at one of the snowmen with his gloved fists, turned around just in time for his sister to throw the ice weapon to him. He caught in his left hand, eyes widened slightly in shock at the camaraderie his sister was showing him by giving him a weapon. Then his mouth curled into a grin. He nodded to his sister, and returned to the snowman that had begun sliding around him, slashing at it with his dull icicle. Kya handled the snowman in front of her with a water whip, one of the few waterbending forms she had learned from her mother. Her brows knit together and her eyes hardened as she focused on the movement of the water as she slashed at her snow enemy, her whip slicing its snowy limbs away in ribbons.

"Mommy!" Katara's eyes snapped back into focus on her own surroundings. Tenzin stood in front of her, pointing at the snow figure that was barreling their way. The mother widened her stance and held her hands out in front of her to bend the snowman aside when, without warning, Tenzin raced toward the snowman to meet it head-on. "I'll protect you, Mommy!" Her five-year-old shouted, and spun in a tight circle, giving him enough momentum push the snowman back with a blast of air that knocked the snowman's head clear off its body. Katara stood in stupefied awe at her youngest son, who before had only been able to bend small puffs of air. She looked across the courtyard to her husband, whose face mirrored hers in amazement as he watched their youngest son brush the snow off of his fleece jacket and puff his chest out proudly.

Aang's reverie was interrupted by the two children who tackled him to the ground. Katara walked over to the fallen Avatar, hand-in-hand with Tenzin. On the snowy ground behind Aang's fort was a dog pile of snowy limbs and giggles, and Aang laughed as he pushed his children off his chest so he could sit up. "Okay, okay," he said between chuckles. "I admit it. You guys beat me."

The three children high-fived each other with happy shouts of "Hurray!" as Katara helped her snow-soaked husband to his feet. "You put up a brave fight, Avatar Aang," Katara whispered in her husband's ear. Aang rolled his eyes and smiled as he pressed his lips to her cheek.

The happy cries of victory quickly turned into mutterings of "Ew, gross!" as the children witness their parents' affections. "Oh shush," Katara said teasingly. "Now let's all get inside before we freeze."

And with that, frozen forts and decapitated snowmen were left behind in favor of dry clothes and hot chocolate.

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**A/N:** It's obvious that I have no idea how to write drabbles, because this is actually a one-shot. Oops.

Anyways, thank you for all the positive feedback that I've gotten so far! I appreciate it a lot. If you have a prompt you would like to suggest, feel free to do so, and I'll make sure to incorporate it in a later chapter!


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